Soc­cer is a good re­lease for him

WITH two younger broth­ers to con­tend with and a house ren­o­va­tion go­ing on around him, Kyle Sa­ri­gian­nis needed a dif­fer­ent way to study for his HSC.

So his par­ents, Chris­tine and An­gelo, just handed him the keys to the fam­ily car so he could study ev­ery day at the lo­cal li­brary in peace and quiet.

“It’s a lit­tle chaotic around here at the mo­ment and poor Kyle is shar­ing a bed­room with one of his younger broth­ers, so the main way we are sup­port­ing him is by giv­ing him the keys to the car,” Chris­tine says. “He goes there ev­ery day un­til it closes at 6pm.

“On the home front, we pretty much cleared his sched­ule of chores and make sure he has plenty of good, nu­tri­tious food to eat. I fig­ure if those ba­sics are taken care of, he will be in a bet­ter place to do what he has to do.”

While Kyle is self-mo­ti­vated, the HSC is not his only fo­cus this year. The 17-year-old is in the sports pro­gram at Car­ing­bah’s En­deav­our Sports High and plays soc­cer in the premiere league.

“Ini­tially at the start of the year we thought he may need to pull back on his soc­cer be­cause he trains daily,” Chris­tine says. “But dur­ing the trial HSC we re­alised it was ac­tu­ally a re­ally good re­lease for him to have. I think it’s im­por­tant for kids to have that es­cape, as too much study is not good.”

Chris­tine says she and An­gelo re­in­force to Kyle, who was named DUX of his year, to just do his best in the HSC. “That’s all we ex­pect of him, the ATAR is not im­por­tant, just that he has done his best, and he knows that.” Kyle Sa­ri­gian­nis with his sup­port­ive mum Chris­tine. Pic­ture: David Swift